I am away on vacation until Sepember 22. I'll read your message when I get back. In the mean time, for Image or VIR Cartridge development please contact the other project leader, Dan Mullen (dmullen). For business, training, or beta program issues, please contact the program manager,Joe Mauro (jmauro). For other issues, please contact my manager Sam Defazio (sdefazio). Thanks, -cathy ***************************************************************************** Cathleen Trezza Server Technologies/NEDC Image Data Cartridges Oracle Corporation ctrezza at us_oracle.com (603) 897-3233 *****************************************************************************
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- To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
- Subject: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #964
- From: "Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com (Aquatic Plants Digest)" <owner-aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
- Date: 19 Sep 97 12:48:03
Aquatic Plants Digest Friday, September 19 1997 Volume 02 : Number 964 In this issue: Re:botia lohachata Re: Fountain Plant Re: Hard Water Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #963 Hard Water Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #963 Re: Top ups & DW Re: Aquarium repair Re: Science Project Re: Clipping Sagittaria Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #963 See the end of the digest for information on unsubscribing from the Aquatic Plants mailing list and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 17:54:35 +0800 From: "Jonathan Uy" <5js at durian_usc.edu.ph> Subject: Re:botia lohachata Thanks to all who responded to my questions on Pond Snails and Copper Tubing. It seems that the clown loach is the popular choice for snail control. Unfortunately, I may have to wait one to two months for a pair. Shawn, could you please give a physical description of yoyo's and it's habits? The pet shops here are not very good with scientific or common names. Thanks for the tip. Jonathan 5js at usc_edu.ph Cebu, Philippines ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 13:18:20 +0000 (GMT) From: Gerry Skau <gerry at ans_net> Subject: Re: Fountain Plant I have a similiar plant in one of my 29 gallon tanks that I got from Westerleigh Aquariums in Staten Island via mail order. They called it a Fountain Saggitaria, I don't know what sub species it is. It is differant from normal *tape grass* type vals,or sags, it looks a little like an Amazon sword with sag leaves instead of Echinodorous leaves. Anyone else have any ideas? I could contact Westerleigh and find out exactly what it is. I was hoping by watching it grow I might be able to identify it but is sure is differant. -Gerry Skau ANS BigDial Engineering ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 97 08:46:21 cst From: mark.fisher at tpwd_state.tx.us Subject: Re: Hard Water >Rats- I was hoping to start a fascinating thread a la *what color is clear >water in a white pail* but George is a man of few words... ;-) Ah, but what is the color of clear water in a RED pail? >I use distilled water when replacing evaporated water to avoid mineral >build up in my tanks. Does anyone else do this or feel that this is >neccessary? A very clever discussion/explanation on this topic can be found at: http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~aquaria/Krib/Chemistry/h2o-changes.html and I will attempt to answer, based on Ron Wozniak's discussion above. My apologies to Ron if I blow it. By topping off your tank with tap water, you are adding water + dissolved minerals to replace the pure water that has evaporated; over time, your tank have a higher mineral content than your tap water due to evaporation, even if you do regular water changes. Eventually, the amount of minerals gained by topping off will equal the amount removed by water changes, but what will this long-term concentration be? Okay, lets assume a 100 gallon tank filled with tap water containing 300 mg/l dissolved solids. 2 gallons are lost every week to evaporation, which is replaced with tap water. This amounts to (2 gallons x 3.78 liters/gallon x 300 mg/liter) = 2,268 mg of minerals added every week. So according to Ron's handy table, with a 20% weekly water change, in the long run this would result in an additional 9,072 mg, or 24 mg/liter, over and above what the aquarium started out with. This would result in a final concentration of 324 mg/liter in the aquarium. According to Ron's table, it would take 8 weeks to reach 80% of this concentration, 11 weeks to reach 90%, and 14 weeks to reach 95%. With only a 10% weekly water change, the final concentration would be 354 mg/liter, while a 25% weekly water change would result in 318 mg/liter. Break even (no increase in dissolved minerals) would require 50% weekly water changes. These figures assume no net uptake of any of the minerals by the plants or fish. Of course, the higher the evaporation rate, the higher the increase in minerals, and vice-versa. In conclusion, as long as you do regular water changes, it seems it is probably not necessary to top off with distilled/deionized water, unless you are trying to maintain some VERY STRICT water quality parameters. Regular water changes can solve/prevent a LOT of aquarium problems. Golly, I hope I got the calculations right! Kind regards, Mark ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 97 07:12:00 -0700 From: gomberg at wcf_com Subject: Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #963 On 09/19/97 at 03:19 p, Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com (Aquatic Plants Digest) said: >Neither Perfecto nor All-Glass makes inferior aquariums. At least not by design. Nor does Oceanic. I have large aquariums built by the above manufacturers and they have performed exactly as they were advertised. >When properly installed and leveled, there have been no leaks, cracks, or abnormalities. I would suggest that those inferring substandard manufacturing practices be the last to throw stones. >Karl R. Schoeler Karl, I believe the question was whether or not these tanks are the "same". It is my understanding that those who have them think that Oceanics have thicker glass. Can you confirm or deny this, looking at the same size tank? I can tell you that at wholesale, Perfecto and All-Glass are quite a bit cheaper. - -- Dave Gomberg, FormMaestro! http://www.wcf.com gomberg at wcf_com Help stop Internet spam! Join CAUCE: http://www.cauce.org/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 09:57:17 -0500 From: berzerker7 at juno_com (Robert Spotswood) Subject: Hard Water <snip> The question is where do you get the distilled water from? This is a "make or buy" decison. By distilled, do you mean steam distilled? This doesn't seem practical to me. Most of us use either reverse osmosis or a deionizing column (like the Tap Water Purifier) to create soft water and mix it with our existing tap water until we arrive at our desired GH and alkalinity. Both R.O. and D.I. units are expensive, but buying bottled distilled water at the grocery store would be worse. <end snip> My experience is different. I have a friend who has a RO system for her aquarium. I asked her about the cost and how it works as I was considering buying one for myself. However, when I got through figuring out the cost per gallon, it worked out to a little over $0.35. There are numerous places here is Houston (read vending machines) where you can by RO water for $0.25 per gallon, and one I visit regularly for $0.20. Fifteen cents per gallon may seem small, but start adding up all the gallons you use, and you will find a significant cost difference, especially when I drive by the place (to get the cheap water) on my way home. Of course, this is Houston, where you don't really drink sink water, you just sort of chew it. (We have very hard water!) Also, I don't know how common water vending machines are in other cities, so your milage may vary. ;) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 10:01:08 -0500 (CDT) From: Thomas R Petersen <peter334 at tc_umn.edu> Subject: Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #963 Jeremy, I'm not so sure I would quickly discount the substrate heating for your 140g setup. I am by no means an expert, but the past month I've been pouring over all kinds of internet and published sources that favor that approach. Admittedly, the cost is up there, but I just proved (using these same sources) that a $60 DIY substrate heating operation is possible--down to the exact timer purchased at Walmart! BTW, I used the low wattage Resler-Behle plan that can be found (along with others) at: http://www.actwin.com/cgi-bin/aarchive/KribText/Plants/Tech/Resler-Cables/cables.T (It turned out to be a very interesting project--if you have the time!) Tom Petersen peter334 at gold_tc.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 97 9:27:13 MDT From: "Marshall F. Wilkinson" <wilkinso at acs_ucalgary.ca> Subject: Re: Top ups & DW Gerry I use DW for top ups as do many on this list. It's definintely necessary to keep water quality stable. Marshall Wilkinson Calgary Alberta ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 10:56:59 -0500 From: krombhol at teclink_net (Paul Krombholz) Subject: Re: Aquarium repair David Jones wrote: > any one have suggestions on aquarium repair, one of my 40 gallon tanks >decided to spring a serious leak. one corner of the mostly glass tank gave >way and I am unsure whether to disassemble it or just squeeze more silicone >into the corner. I bought a used 55 gallon that was a leaker, and I didn't go as far as disassembling, but I scraped away all the silicone on the inside with a single edge razor blade, then cleaned the glass with steel wool and scouring powder, then rinsed very thoroughly, then dried for about a week and then reapplied silicone liberally on all the inside joins right up to the top of the tank. (By "joins", I mean where one glass plate meets another. ) It has held up for over 20 years. The important thing is to get the glass surfaces really clean where you are going to apply silicone. Paul Krombholz in dry, not too hot for us (around 90 for the high) Jackson, Mississippi. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 12:56:36 -0400 From: rjw at aluxs_micro.lucent.com (Ronald Wozniak) Subject: Re: Science Project >To whom it may concern, > I am an eighth-grade science student in Brooklyn, NY and am >currently researching for a yearlong science project. The topic I have >chosen is "The Effect of the Amount of Salt on the Growth of Aquatic >Plants". So far I have considered using the Indian Water Friend >(Hygrophilia polysperma) or the Elodea densa, since they are sturdy, >available and easy to grow. Is this a wise choice? Also, I have found very >ittle about how salt would actually affect one of these plants. Do you have >any info/references that would help me there? > I would greatly appreciate it. > Sincerely, > Jacob Stulberg > jastulberg at packer_edu Jacob, I think you have an outstanding idea for a science project! You are right about there not being a lot on information available on the effect of salt on the growth of aquatic plants. Or at least, I haven't found very much. Terrestrial and Bog plants seem to have gotten most of the attention. Hygrophilia polysperma or the Elodea densa would be good choices. If I had to pick from the two I would use Hygrophilia polysperma, since I consider this plant excellent in watching for trends in growth. This plant is like good watch dog or canary in a cave in spotting troubles. There's a couple of article in the magazine "The Aquatic Gardener" which discuss using this plant to monitor nutrients in the aquarium. The plant shows distinctive signs when the light, iron, potasium, etc .. levels are out of balance. I've never seen the plant used for monitoring salt levels. If interested, I'll look up for you the author and dates when these two articles where published. Of the Hygrophilia polysperma species, I like the "Sunset" Hygrophilia polysperma. This plant has some pink and red color in it. My daughter has this plant in her standard "stock" equipped (i.e. no special lights, CO2, etc...) 20 gallon aquarium. The plants grow OK in her dimmly lite aquarium. In my "High Tech" 90 gallon aquarium, the plant is excellent in monitoring iron levels. Another plant you may want to consider is the "Amazon Sword" plant. The plant is fairly easy to find and should not be too expensive. The mail order store "That Fish Place" use to sell a Medium Amazon Sword plant that, for some reason, only grows 6 to 10 inches tall, rather than the more usual 12 to 18 inches. In general, I found Amazon Sword plants to be fairly sensitive to high salt levels (i.e. 1 teaspoon of NaCl/gallon of water). The leaves on these plants are relatively large and thin making them easy to observe. I believe that when the salt levels in the water get too high, the salt causes round brown burn marks in the leaves. Too much salt and the plant turns to mush. I'd be extremely interested in knowing what concentration of salt in water start causing problems. One motavation I have in studying this area is that when I started growing aquatic plants, my aquarium water was softened with a standard water softener. Regular salt (NaCl) is used in this process. Anyways, I had a ruff time in the beginning, most of plants did poorly until I quit using softened water. If it wasn't from the advice from people on the APD list, I would have given up the hobby like a lot of other "beginners". I thinks results from your study could make an excellent addition for publication in the journal "The Aquatic Gardener". Good Luck, Ron Wozniak TAG member rjwozniak at lucent_com Allentown, PA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 10:42:10 -0700 From: rhondawi at sprynet_com Subject: Re: Clipping Sagittaria Brian, >Hello, all. I have some Sagittaria that I picked up at a local >auction which is doing great. I've never bothered to ID it, as I >reckon it's probably some x var y that I'd never be able to puzzle out >anyway. Its leaves are about 1/2" (1.3 cm) wide, possibly a bit >wider, and its reddish. The problem is that the plants are over 36" >tall! What I'm wondering is whether it's OK to clip these at the >water line, as they're creating considerable shade in my tank, which >is about 16" high. I have a much smaller growing sag, but I have some jungle val that easily gets that tall in my 55 living room tank. If I don't trim it the leaves get to be such a mass on the top the fish even have trouble getting up to the top to eat. I trim mine to about 2 inches or so above the water surface so it still has a nice affect. I trim it about every couple months. I did them the other day and pulled a full 4 gallon bucket worth of trimings out. I just feed all the trimmings to my golden apple and Columbian ramshorn snails. Obviously sag is a different plant but they are pretty similar and I have found no ill effects from the trimmings on the val. Rhonda http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/RhondaWilson/ American Livebearer Association http://petsforum.com/ala/ Pets Forum Group Inc. http://petsforum.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 21:42:42 +0200 From: "Thomas D. Kryger" <tdkryger at post6_tele.dk> Subject: Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #963 Hi I've got a problem. 1 month ago I started to use fertilizer in my tank (My plants wasen't growing). 3 weeks ago I got the first blue-green algae, and someone told my that is was because of poor water quality, so i started to change the water, and in those 3 weeks i've changed the water 9 times in all, and there are no change (except my plants are bigger, as are my algea). Anyone got a solution? Thomas D. Kryger TDKryger at post6_tele.dk EAPsoftware at technologist_com http://home6.inet.tele.dk/tdkryger/ ------------------------------ End of Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #964 ************************************ To unsubscribe to aquatic-plants, send the command: unsubscribe aquatic-plants in the body of a message to "Majordomo at ActWin_com". Archives are available on the web at http://www.actwin.com/fish/aquatic-plants or via FTP to ftp.actwin.com in /pub/aquaria/aquatic-plants.
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